Energy-efficient hydrodynamic journal bearings by means of condition monitoring and lubrication flow control

摘要

Paper presented at CM-MFPT 2011, the Eighth International Conference on Condition Monitoring and Machinery Failure Prevention Technologies, Cardiff, UK, June 2011 Journal bearings are one of the most commonly used engineering parts. State-of-the-art hydrodynamic journal bearing lubrication is carried out by a constant oversupply with lubricant; theory suggests a lubrication flow rate which is up to 80% lower. This causes energy losses due to fluid film friction in the unloaded areas of the bearing. Reducing the lubricant flow, however, may lead to overheating of the bearing or collapse of the load-carrying fluid film, both resulting in failure of the journal bearing. A new approach to safely reduce the lubricant flow by 80% is presented in this paper, by using a broadband piezoelectric acoustic emission sensor to detect ultrasonic structure-borne noise, usually caused by metal-to-metal contact at mixed and boundary lubrication conditions.